In Spring the Sight of Your Back
by aki.ari
Summary: KuroKen Month #6: Seasons - You always think you have forever, you make plans like the future is yours for the making, but the present waits for no one and the sakura remind us that tomorrow is never certain.


_**In Spring the Sight of Your Back**_

 _ **Theme: Seasons**_

There was something terrifyingly sad about sakura in full bloom Kuroo thought as he leaned against the railing overlooking the Meguro River. Walled embankments were overrun with creeping vines in a vivid olive green carpet and the water in the channel was dark, seemed almost black in the evening light, reflecting in stilted calm the branches above, burdened with thousands of white and pink blushed petals. Since ancient times people looked upon the flowers with reverence for their fragile beauty – dissipated at a passing gale, scattered with a sudden shower. A symbol of the transience of life. A reminder to treasure every moment, for not a single one will come again. _Ichi-go ichi-e_.

Brows furrowed, jaw tight, lips pinched at the corners in a sort of strained smile… That face looking up at Kuroo from the water's surface was one of anguish, regret and stubborn resignation. A face he did not recognize despite its familiar features. He didn't understand how he came to be here in this way. Some things in life are just too peculiar to understand. He couldn't explain the reason why he took the Mita line instead of the Yamanote line at Sugamo station. He couldn't understand how he'd ended up on the volleyball team in college even after that injury in his final year of high school. Or why he clung to the faded memory of those younger times when Kenma was almost always at his side. It wasn't like those memories – no matter how precious – were his only anchor to life.

Dark tinted catlike eyes lazily followed the lofty descent of petals falling like snow to set the lightest ripples across the water where they landed, his own reflection shuddering and dissolving upon impact. His smile faltering as his thoughts, like the floating petals, grew dark with their drink and were consumed by those lightless depths. It was just as well. He didn't even understand why he continued to smile, let alone how it was even possible. What comfort is there in memories and keeping up pretenses for the world, when no one is even looking your way?

Kuroo puzzled over it like one would a logistics question, but found after a lot of failed attempts of rationalization that there was simply no answer, no formula with which to determine how X and Y became Z. So what to do? Ignore it? Pretend that it all made sense though none of it did? Or perhaps chalk it up to fate and all that predestined existence crap. Yeah, things are always easier to accept if you think that there was no alternative.

Still, there couldn't have been a future woven into the fabric of time in which Kenma had been taken from him. It had to be some terrible mistake. Any moment, time would stop for everyone, like it had for Kuroo, and the mistress of fate would rewind the gears to that day. Any moment this gut wrenching sickness would be replaced. Kenma would be back. All would be as it had been. And time would start for Kuroo again. No longer lingering in this stunted place of emptiness and shame.

 _If ever there was a sky the befit the description of mundane, this would have been it. It could have been drawn directly from a children's picture book, plain unassuming blue with puffy cotton-ball clouds spaced just far enough apart to emphasize the unique forms, but in huddles close enough that the blue space would appear uneven. Yet despite this seeming deviation in an otherwise stringent pattern, it looked suspiciously planned._

It was this boring sky that stretched across the Tokyo the day Kuroo met Kenma beneath the blossoming cherries just a year ago.

" _I'm done Kuroo," Kenma said, knuckles white from the force of his grip on the railing barring people from getting too close to the edge. "I just can't take it anymore… This pressure… This responsibility…"_

" _Kenma, what are you-"_

" _I'm not you."_

" _I never asked you to be."_

" _Then why did you leave me with such big shoes to fill? I don't know how you even managed it all."_

" _You're not alone. Everyone at Nekoma-"_

" _Everyone isn't you!"_

 _Taken aback by Kenma's exasperated outburst, Kuroo fell silent._

" _I tried to be a good captain, really I did, but I can't do it."_

" _You make them strong."_

" _If I was ever strong in your eyes, it was only because you were there beside me." Kenma swallowed the bile in his throat, rubbing at the frustrated tears glistening – yet unshed – in his eyes._

" _Kenma."_

" _I'm tired Kuroo… I'm tired of waking up for practice. Of walking to school alone. Of chasing the ball and listening to the others nag and bicker. I'm tired of the first years complaining about the weak guy being captain and teachers asking me what I want to do when I graduate… All I want, all I've ever wanted was to be by your side and it hurts so much that you're so far from me now."_

" _What are you saying Kenma, I'm right here. I'll always be by your side! I won't give that position to anyone and I sure as hell am not going to leave that space empty," Kuroo said hands resting on Kenma's shoulders, drawing him into a consoling embrace. "I was meaning to talk with you about this when I'd finished getting organized, but I'm looking for an apartment, so when you graduate we can live together. I want to be with you Kenma. I want to see you every day and walk you to class. Take the train like we used to. I want to get pissed at people trying to chat you up and boldly sling my arm around your shoulder to show everyone that you're mine. I want to spend the rest of my life with you."_

" _You're just saying that."_

" _Have I ever lied to you?"_

" _You told me things would get better."_

" _Haven't they?"_

"… _you never said better didn't last."_

" _Kenma?"_

" _I have to get back, it's getting late," Kenma said extricating himself from Kuroo's arms. "Goodnight Kuroo."_

He didn't know what to say. He should have said something. Should have walked him home. Anything would have been better than nothing. But he'd just stood there, dumfounded by that pain that had been laid bare before him, watching as Kenma retreated from him, small back and shoulders seeming weighed down by an invisible burden he could no longer bear as the sakura blustered down around him in the cool Spring breeze.

Then it had been too late. A simple accident. A weary body. An unfocused mind. A flight of stairs. And an unintentional nudge. That was all it had taken to send Kenma to someplace where Kuroo couldn't reach. To a place where not even hopes or dreams or what ifs were any comfort, and all that remained was this regret that smelled of rotting sakura – a bitter, astringently saccharine smell.

 _End_

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A/N: I'm sorry. I was in a mood and this happened... If you follow me on tumblr, you know that I have decided to do a short fic for each season, I promise the other ones aren't going to be this depressing. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my writing, even if the content was a bit painful to read. Next up will be a summer inspired seasonal fic for #kurokenmonth on tumblr. Should be up sometime tomorrow.

As always thanks for reading, all comments are very much welcomed and appreciated :)


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